@karmacoingood
I know the natural inclination for this sort of organic development goes against the following, but it would really help us to get organized and work efficiently. Let me know your thoughts:
1) Decide on the mission statement and make everyone clear about the direction of Karmacoin.
2) Brainstorm to put together a short list of all the things that we need to do in the next 3-6 months. Take a look at other successful and up-and-coming coins (Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Reddcoin, etc) and see what can be borrowed.
3) Get volunteers to take ownership of a part of the task list and have them set their own deadlines and sub-tasks. Even if they can't do it themselves, they can make it their job to find someone to do it.
4) Centralize the task list (I recommend Zoho Projects or some other efficient system)
5) Nominate one person to manage the task list and make sure things get done, and the list is thorough and organized.
6) Regularly communicate on every Karmacoin channel about what we're up to
I know it sounds a bit bureaucratic, but getting organized I think is our first priority. Otherwise, our progress will be exceedingly slow. We still haven't seemed to decide on a logo, slogan, brand, mission statement, etc., because we are not yet organized. It is the difference between success and failure. If we succeed without being organized, that's just luck.
After that, I think the priority is to polish the website to make it more user-friendly and easier to find out what Karmacoin is about and navigate the website.
Some notes about design and branding
We need 1 or 2 people that have experience in website UX and/or graphic design/marketing to make decisions related to UX and design/marketing. (Alternatively, putting together a contest on 99designs and tweaking the submissions as we go along.) We then need to survey 10+ people that 1) are not a part of Karmacoin but may possibly be in future; 2) our target market, to find out how they feel about Karmacoin from the logo/brand
If we have a couple of people here designing and working to continually please a large number of non-designers who have every manner of concerns about design, progress will be nearly impossible.
We're a coin, but "Karmacoin" is still a brand and should be treated as any global brand would be. This is perhaps the most important decision we'll make, and one that needs to be done quickly. Whenever the democratic process is inserted into design decisions chaos ensues. This is what has happened to us. The only voting that should take place is surveying people that do not yet have a stake in Karmacoin. (non-technical people that will be the greatest majority of future users)
In the following link, Marissa Meyer of Yahoo chronicles what happened when they did the same thing that Karmacoin did. The result? A bad logo that was out of touch with what users wanted: http://marissamayr.tumblr.com/post/60336044815/geeking-out-on-the-logo. Read "Yahoo's Branding Disaster" here: http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2013/09/yahoos-branding-disaster/
Here, a few people got together to do a memorial for the Jewish Holocaust, and ended up creating a memorial in comic sans font (!) http://fontsinuse.com/uses/2274/war-memorial-in-geffen-nl
Good design will cost a few hundred dollars, but bad design (out of touch with target market) will end up costing us a lot more.
I know the natural inclination for this sort of organic development goes against the following, but it would really help us to get organized and work efficiently. Let me know your thoughts:
1) Decide on the mission statement and make everyone clear about the direction of Karmacoin.
2) Brainstorm to put together a short list of all the things that we need to do in the next 3-6 months. Take a look at other successful and up-and-coming coins (Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Reddcoin, etc) and see what can be borrowed.
3) Get volunteers to take ownership of a part of the task list and have them set their own deadlines and sub-tasks. Even if they can't do it themselves, they can make it their job to find someone to do it.
4) Centralize the task list (I recommend Zoho Projects or some other efficient system)
5) Nominate one person to manage the task list and make sure things get done, and the list is thorough and organized.
6) Regularly communicate on every Karmacoin channel about what we're up to
I know it sounds a bit bureaucratic, but getting organized I think is our first priority. Otherwise, our progress will be exceedingly slow. We still haven't seemed to decide on a logo, slogan, brand, mission statement, etc., because we are not yet organized. It is the difference between success and failure. If we succeed without being organized, that's just luck.
After that, I think the priority is to polish the website to make it more user-friendly and easier to find out what Karmacoin is about and navigate the website.
Some notes about design and branding
We need 1 or 2 people that have experience in website UX and/or graphic design/marketing to make decisions related to UX and design/marketing. (Alternatively, putting together a contest on 99designs and tweaking the submissions as we go along.) We then need to survey 10+ people that 1) are not a part of Karmacoin but may possibly be in future; 2) our target market, to find out how they feel about Karmacoin from the logo/brand
If we have a couple of people here designing and working to continually please a large number of non-designers who have every manner of concerns about design, progress will be nearly impossible.
We're a coin, but "Karmacoin" is still a brand and should be treated as any global brand would be. This is perhaps the most important decision we'll make, and one that needs to be done quickly. Whenever the democratic process is inserted into design decisions chaos ensues. This is what has happened to us. The only voting that should take place is surveying people that do not yet have a stake in Karmacoin. (non-technical people that will be the greatest majority of future users)
In the following link, Marissa Meyer of Yahoo chronicles what happened when they did the same thing that Karmacoin did. The result? A bad logo that was out of touch with what users wanted: http://marissamayr.tumblr.com/post/60336044815/geeking-out-on-the-logo. Read "Yahoo's Branding Disaster" here: http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2013/09/yahoos-branding-disaster/
Here, a few people got together to do a memorial for the Jewish Holocaust, and ended up creating a memorial in comic sans font (!) http://fontsinuse.com/uses/2274/war-memorial-in-geffen-nl
Good design will cost a few hundred dollars, but bad design (out of touch with target market) will end up costing us a lot more.
Hey jpeters. I am going to sleep now. What role do you want? Can we start up on this at 9a EST on IRQ tomorrow morning?
